Old Red Lion Theatre Archives - Page 3 of 20

Tomorrow May Be My Last

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 26th May 2022

★★★★★

“Cooper embodies Joplin, strips her bare and dresses her up again in her own commanding and charismatic personality”

There’s a three-piece band jamming’ the blues, wearing shades and bandanas; stars and stripes are draped over chairs; a battered sofa; crumpled dreams bathed in tie-dye and the glow of lava lamps. Hard liquor and disembodied voices transporting us back to the ‘Summer of Love’.

That’s just the pre-show.

“Ladies and gentlemen – Janis Joplin!”. The band strikes up. The band breaks off. “Ladies and gentlemen – Janis Joplin!”. The band strikes up. The band comes to another resigned stop. Third time lucky. Joplin appears. The worse for wear, but totally fired up. And she’s off.

Did I just refer to Janis Joplin? I meant Collette Cooper. It’s difficult to separate the two. The mannerisms are spot on, thoroughly researched and executed. The drunken cackle, the Texan drawl, and the expletives. The physicality is striking, and Cooper’s voice has the ravaged quality Joplin possessed, soaked in the same spirit. The essence is undeniable and uncanny. Joplin courses through Cooper’s veins, striking right to her fierce heart. This is a stunning performance from start to finish.

Set in a festival, and backstage in her dressing room, in the late ‘60s, “Tomorrow May Be My Last” is a musical, anecdotal and a devastatingly emotional journey through the life and career of Janis Joplin. In between the songs, Cooper crawls into Janis Joplin’s skin and addresses the audience by way of talking, not so much to herself, but to her beloved bottle of Southern Comfort. Intimate and husky, she sears our hearts with self-deprecation, self-analysis, drunken logic, and raw revelations. And song.

Early on in life, Joplin gave herself two choices; either fit in or “become a fucking Rock Star”. She burnt bright, burnt fast, and at twenty-seven years old, her flame had burnt its last. Thankfully, Joplin never fitted in. But nor did she escape her childhood demons, the bullying that informed her body image. And she could never shake off the cloak of loneliness that forever weighed her down. “A Woman Left Lonely” is delivered by Cooper with gut-wrenching rawness and honesty.

The show features some of Joplin’s best-loved songs, placing them in glorious context by Cooper’s reminiscences. Launching into “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)”, she flawlessly depicts the chasm that lies between the person and the personality that is seen on the global stage. Like many of the numbers, it is preceded by a perfect evocation of stage fright. We can taste the vulnerability, such is Cooper’s mesmerising performance. Backstage the loneliness throbs to the dying backbeat.

On stage she knew no limits. “Ball and Chain” was a landmark song in Joplin’s career, and a defining point in the show. Cooper commands her audience, ignoring the fact we may be sitting above an Islington pub. Instead, we are at the Monterey Festival, we are witnessing the birth of the ‘Summer of Love’.

“I don’t write songs, I make them up” Cooper tells us, paraphrasing Joplin while seamlessly adding one of her own compositions (co-written with Musical Director Mike Hanson). “Tomorrow May Be My Last” could be plucked from Janis’ own repertoire; it epitomises the mix of hope, idealism and tragedy that followed Joplin throughout her fleeting life. Throughout the evening, Cooper captures the essence, explores the danger, and amazingly unearths deep grooves of humour too.

With Jan Simpson on drums, Jack Parry on guitar and Dan Malek on bass, the effect is complete. Through the music Cooper not only comes to life, but she brings Joplin back to life. And sends her off again with a glittering finale. Joplin’s wild heartbeat finally comes to rest as the belt tightens around her arm, and the final drop of heroin chokes her veins. Almost before we can register the sadness and brutal waste of a life cut short, Cooper turns it back into a celebration of that extraordinary life. “Take another little piece of my heart” she sings. She puts her heart into this show, then hands it over to us. And we gladly take more than just a little.

Cooper embodies Joplin, strips her bare and dresses her up again in her own commanding and charismatic personality. Intimate and intense, we see the minutiae and the global side by side. We are forewarned that the show is “proper Rock and Roll loud”. As befitting the genre, Cooper comes back for an encore of “Me and Bobby McGee: “Feeling good was good enough for me…”. Well, there’s an understatement. The feel-good factor is off the scale.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Robin Hope

Tomorrow May Be My Last

Old Red Lion Theatre until 11th June

Other shows recently reviewed by Joe:

Us | ★★★★ | White Bear Theatre | February 2022

The Straw Chair | ★★★ | Finborough Theatre | April 2022

The Silent Woman | ★★★★ | White Bear Theatre | April 2022

The End of the Night | ★★ | Park Theatre | May 2022

Orlando | ★★★★ | Jermyn Street Theatre | May 2022

The Man Behind the Mask | ★★★★ | Churchill Theatre | May 2022

Til Death do us Part | ★★★★★ | Theatre503 | May 2022

The Breach | ★★★ | Hampstead Theatre | May 2022

Grease | ★★★★ | Dominion Theatre | May 2022

Legally Blonde | ★★★★★ | Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre | May 2022

Click here to see our most recent reviews

The Delights Of Dogs And The Problems Of People

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 9th January 2020

★★★★

“however hard it may be to watch, it constantly grabs the attention”

A two-hander about the breakdown of a marriage compared to the loyalty shown by pet dogs might seem an odd take on the oft-dramatised subject of relationships, but in Rosalind Blessed’s play The Delights of Dogs and the Problems of People it becomes a nuanced and unsettling affair.

Staged as part of a double bill of her work at the Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington (alongside Lullabies for the Lost), there’s an opportunity to see each piece as an individual drama or across an afternoon and evening. Both are well worth seeing.

The title of this play, first seen four years ago, might suggest a jaunty romcom but the truth of the hard-hitting drama is far more harrowing. What starts out as a tender and quirky love story involving a couple who met while at university unravels into a terrifying 70 minutes of obsession, possessiveness and violence.

In some exceptionally clever and mature writing, Blessed constantly shifts the balance (and audience sympathies) between the pair who have been married for five years, yet separated for two of them.

On the one hand is James, an easy-going charmer desperate to save his marriage (he describes himself sadly as a “very nearly ex-husband”) and convincing when he tells friends that he has no idea why things are breaking down so badly. It is an intricate performance from Duncan Wilkins, who even draws members of the audience into his side of the argument.

But as the cracks begin to show we discover a manipulative monster who wants to “put his wife back together,” a hateful tyrant who refuses to accept the truth or to understand his wife’s delicate mental state.

Blessed gives an equally fine performance as Robin (the same character from Lullabies for the Lost, but in an alternate universe version), whose insecurities about her image and low self esteem leave her vulnerable. She is unable to let go of the damaging relationship yet her true feelings are exposed shockingly when she cries out “I never want any man to own any part of me ever again.”

This see-saw relationship never seems less than believable and Blessed has admitted that parts of it are drawn from experience, which certainly comes out in vivid writing and performance.

The unconditional love of a dog is contrasted with the volatility of a partner who swings between unbridled declarations of affection and rage caused by too much drink and an unwillingness to accept the end of a relationship. In a clever twist when we see the loyal Staffie he is played by Wilkins, who is so much in character that he sniffs the legs of audience members or sneezes into their faces.

As the layers are unpeeled we begin to understand the truth of the situation, which builds to a horrific climax. With domestic abuse not all the scars are visible, with words having the terrible power to wound, yet psychotic behaviour will ultimately cause an individual to lose control.

Director Caroline Devlin understands the strength of the script and allows the words and characters to tell their own story while Anna Kezia’s cardboard box white set (shared with Lullabies for the Lost) is simple but multi-functional.

It is the sort of well-written and acted drama that inevitably comes with its own warning about the distressing content and will resonate uncomfortably with many. But however hard it may be to watch, it constantly grabs the attention, providing a darker but important facet to understanding the truth about relationships – and how we might treat each other better.

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 26th May 2022

★★★★★

“Cooper embodies Joplin, strips her bare and dresses her up again in her own commanding and charismatic personality”

There’s a three-piece band jamming’ the blues, wearing shades and bandanas; stars and stripes are draped over chairs; a battered sofa; crumpled dreams bathed in tie-dye and the glow of lava lamps. Hard liquor and disembodied voices transporting us back to the ‘Summer of Love’.

That’s just the pre-show.

“Ladies and gentlemen – Janis Joplin!”. The band strikes up. The band breaks off. “Ladies and gentlemen – Janis Joplin!”. The band strikes up. The band comes to another resigned stop. Third time lucky. Joplin appears. The worse for wear, but totally fired up. And she’s off.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Robin Hope

Tomorrow May Be My Last

Old Red Lion Theatre until 11th June

Other shows recently reviewed by Joe:

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 9th January 2020

★★★★

“however hard it may be to watch, it constantly grabs the attention”

A two-hander about the breakdown of a marriage compared to the loyalty shown by pet dogs might seem an odd take on the oft-dramatised subject of relationships, but in Rosalind Blessed’s play The Delights of Dogs and the Problems of People it becomes a nuanced and unsettling affair.

Staged as part of a double bill of her work at the Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington (alongside Lullabies for the Lost), there’s an opportunity to see each piece as an individual drama or across an afternoon and evening. Both are well worth seeing.

In some exceptionally clever and mature writing, Blessed constantly shifts the balance (and audience sympathies) between the pair who have been married for five years, yet separated for two of them.

But as the cracks begin to show we discover a manipulative monster who wants to “put his wife back together,” a hateful tyrant who refuses to accept the truth or to understand his wife’s delicate mental state.

This see-saw relationship never seems less than believable and Blessed has admitted that parts of it are drawn from experience, which certainly comes out in vivid writing and performance.

As the layers are unpeeled we begin to understand the truth of the situation, which builds to a horrific climax. With domestic abuse not all the scars are visible, with words having the terrible power to wound, yet psychotic behaviour will ultimately cause an individual to lose control.

Director Caroline Devlin understands the strength of the script and allows the words and characters to tell their own story while Anna Kezia’s cardboard box white set (shared with Lullabies for the Lost) is simple but multi-functional.

Reviewed by David Guest

Photography by Natalie Wells

The Delights Of Dogs And The Problems Of People

Old Red Lion Theatre until 1st February

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: